10 REASONS I’M HAVING A LOVE AFFAIR WITH SQUARESPACE
** This is a re-creation of the original blog post from October 10th 2018 **
SO I'm a HUGE fan of Squarespace.
OK that’s an understatement…
I LOVE Squarespace.
I scream my love for it from the treetops (aka I’m constantly commenting in Facebook groups, jumping in on eavesdropped conversations, telling all my friends how wicked awesome it is and writing blog posts like the one you’re currently reading).
It makes me giddy.
I never get tired of hanging out with it.
Basically, Squarespace is my bestie + I think it could be yours too.
Let me tell you why...
10 REASONS I’M HAVING A LOVE AFFAIR WITH SQUARESPACE
1. | IT’S INSTINCTUAL.
What I love most about Squarespace is how instinctual it is to use over Wordpress. Think Apple as Squarespace and Microsoft as Wordpress. Both excellent. Both have their pluses and minuses. Squarespace is easy to use and beautiful but like Apple, you're stuck in their box. Like Microsoft, Wordpress is much more customizable which is great but this can lead to overwhelm and a sub par site if you don't know what you're doing.
2. | EASY TO USE BACK END.
I’ll never forget my first website. I was SO excited. I paid for my hosting and domain. Set up Wordpress with some help from my man and logged on for the first time. OH MAN. What had I gotten myself into? How do I use this supposedly easy to use platform? How do I create a website from THIS? Eventually I figured it out, but I could have saved so much time if I didn’t have to learn #allthethings about how to use Wordpress.
Sure, Wordpresses backend isn’t the worst. Once you get a hang of it, it’s easy to use BUT Squarespace’s backend is instinctual from the beginning.
3. | BEAUTIFUL TEMPLATES INCLUDED IN THE COST OF YOUR SUBSCRIPTION.
One of the best parts of Squarespace is that all their "templates" are free (although you can purchase templates through third party websites that are beautiful too).
My favourite Squarespace template to use is Brine or anything in the Brine family. Learn what I mean HERE.
4. | ALL IN ONE PLATFORM.
The cool thing with Squarespace is everything you need to launch your website is under “one roof” and included in your subscription. Take a gander what Squarespace means by thatHERE.
What is my favourite part about this:
No more plugins.
No more updating them.
No more hours trying to find JUST THE RIGHT one only for it to crash your website.
No more paying for a plugin or widget you don’t actually end up needing.
5. | SUPER EASY ECOMMERCE POSSIBILITIES FOR PHYSICAL, DIGITAL OR SERVICE BASED PRODUCTS.
I’ve played with both Shopify + Wordpress as e-commerce platforms and from an easy of use point of view, Squarespace has it nailed.
E-commerce is available for all plans minus the personal plan (I ecommerce the business plan if you're starting off). Once you start selling more products, I’d also recommend the e-commerce plans so you aren’t paying Squarespace on top of the credit card fees.
Also, if you’re drop shipping or selling many products, I still believe Shopify is the best choice overall.
6. | COST EFFECTIVE.
When I first looked at Squarespace's pricing structure I thought it seemed expensive in comparison to Wordpress. Then I did the math.
With Wordpress you are most likely paying for hosting, plugins, widgets, premium themes, and likely a designer.
Since Squarespace is all inclusive, you don’t need to pay for any of this, including the designer. If you haven’t gathered it yet, it's pretty darn easy to use yourself.
For myself, when I plugged in what I was paying for Wordpress v.s. what I was paying for Squarespace, they were pretty darn equal but I got SO. MUCH. MORE. VALUE. with Squarespace.
(Side note: GASP I’m saying you can do it without my help. I’m a firm believer you can, that doesn’t mean you will. My job isn’t just desiging you a website + brand but also making sure it actually happens.)
7. | DRAG AND DROP STYLE BUILDER WHICH MAKES IT EASY PEASY TO CREATE YOUR WEBSITE.
Have you ever been using Wordpress and wished you could just drag an element exactly where you wanted it to go? With Squarespace you can do exactly that without having to add any plugins or try 1000 themes to find just the right one.
8. | IT’S LESS CUSTOMIZABLE THAN WORDPRESS.
You would think this would be a con but for me, it’s actually a pro because it’s less overwhelming. No more sorting through all the junk to find the good stuff. It’s just ALL good stuff.
9. | AMAZING CUSTOMER SERVICE AND HOW TO GUIDES.
Any question you have, I can almost guarantee there will be a guide or someone will give you an answer. Take a gander at what I meanHERE.
10. | WHEN IT’S DONE, YOUR WEBSITE WILL LOOK FREAKIN AWESOME.
I used Wordpress for years and designed multiple websites on it but I never walked away feeling 100% in love with what I created. Every Squarespace website I've created has felt polished, clean and is flawless in comparison.
Want to know more? Learn more about Squarespace and they’re wicked awesome features HERE.
Like any bestie, Squarespace does have a few things they could work on.
Since I have my rose coloured glasses on, I can only think of two biggies right now:
1. | CUSTOMIZABILITY FOR DIFFERENT DEVICES.
One of the biggest things that I haven’t found amazing about Squarespace is their mobile customization.
I’d LOVE to see Squarespace integrate more customizability between desktop, mobile and tablet without having to go into developer mode.
Squarespace is far from alone on this issue. In fact, the only platform I have seen that really provides the level of mobile customization I’d like to see is ShowIt.
I haven’t tried ShowIt yet but I hope to give it a shot in the future. I personally find their pricing structure/ features to be a bit of a turn off considering how expensive it is. If you’ve given it a try, let me know your thoughts in the comments.
2. | THEIR EMAIL CAMPAIGNS.
I was recently invited to try Squarespace’s beta of their email campaigns. I was BEYOND excited for this. Think: checking everyday to see if I had been given early access, screamed with excitement when I finally did, and then almost cried when it wasn’t what it needed to be.
There were two things that were great about it: it’s beautiful + it’s easy to use. Otherwise it needs a lot of work. My biggest disappointment being lack of automation.
That being said, considering it’s still in beta, I’m hoping when it officially launches some improvements will have been made.
For me, the pros WAY outweigh the cons. These two things might be slightly irritating but no ones perfect right? These cons are far from the end of the world. I can deal with and I’m pretty sure you can too.
IF YOU DECIDE TO GIVE SQUARESPACE A SHOT, A COUPLE THINGS TO NOTE:
♥ Sign up with a post-secondary email if you have one. If your school is eligible (most are), Squarespace gives you 50% off for your first year (learn more about it HERE).
♥ Start building your website using their free trial. This way you have the opportunity to mess around + see if it’s the right fit for your business. It also gives you the opportunity to build out your site before launch without paying a dime. I also like using the trial deadline as my launch deadline #getshitdone.
Pro tip: Squarespace offers a two week trial but at the end of that, Squarespace will email you asking if you’d like more time. They will then give you an additional week. SO REALLY you have three weeks to make your website dreams come true.
♥ Try out different templates (what they call themes). Some have a blog sidebar, some don't. The cool thing though is you can build one extremely easily like I did on my blog (check out what I mean on my blog HERE.)
♥ My personal fav template is anything in the Brine family because they're extremely customizable. I'm using Moksha for my website.
♥ If you're in love with Squarespace and want a different theme than they offer, Station Seven or GoLiveHQ have some awesome ones.
ONE LAST THING TO CONSIDER…
Think about this: I could spout of all kinds of things about Wordpress to you like “use this hosting” or “purchase your domain from this site” and make all the monies. BUT Squarespace doesn’t offer affiliate kickbacks. SO anyone that goes on and on about how much they love Squarespace (aka this girl over here), is doing it from pure love and expecting nothing in return. Which I think is pretty darn cool.
ALSO Squarespace has been a game changer for handing over websites to clients. They can ACTUALLY use it unlike other platforms. Such a better overall experience for them. Saves their time, saves my time. If that’s not a win as a designer, I don’t what is ;-)
So there you have it!
Squarespace may not be as customizable in some ways as Wordpress and of course has its downfalls but overall it's an excellent platform.
If an aesthetically pleasing + easy to use platform is what you’re looking for, than Squarespace is for you. Give it a shot, you won’t be disappointed.
Enjoy!
